YouTube Music Key

YouTube's New Streaming Music Service Is Unlike Anything On The Market

Why Is This Important?

The world's largest video sharing platform is about to take on Spotify directly.

Long Story Short

New leaks show that YouTube's long-rumored music streaming subscription service — called Music Key — is now imminent. For a fee of $9.99 a month, users will be able to remove ads from YouTube and listen to tracks offline. If Google gets the mix right then Spotify, Rdio et al. should be worried.

Long Story

Fresh leaks courtesy of Android Police have given us our clearest look yet at YouTube's upcoming music subscription service. Dubbed YouTube Music Key, it lets users banish ads from YouTube music videos, stream audio in the background and listen to tracks offline. The information gleaned by Android Police hasn't been officially confirmed, so as yet we don't have an exact date for when the service will go live.

It's a smart move for YouTube, where music videos are hugely popular: With over 2 billion views, PSY's "Gangnam Style" is the site's most popular clip, for example. With kids and young adults eschewing traditional digital music platforms in favor of loading up their favorite tracks on YouTube, Google sees an opportunity to make some extra money and give these audio enthusiasts a better listening experience at the same time.

YouTube Music Key will offer offline playback and no more ads.

It's not clear where this leaves Google Play Music All Access, the tech giant's existing Spotify competitor — according to Android Police, signing up for YouTube Music Key will get you Music All Access as well, which will be renamed as Google Play Music Key. It's certainly an increasingly crowded market, with the likes of Spotify, Rdio, Deezer and the Apple-owned Beats all offering users as much music as they can stream in return for $10 every month.

One area where YouTube Music Key might be able to stand out is in alternative recordings, concert footage, remixes and covers — there's already a huge amount of this unofficial content on YouTube, and the new service could give users better ways to sift through it.

Rumors around the the launch of a YouTube music platform have been swirling for some time, stretching back to October 2013. At the time it was believed that complications over agreements with the major record labels were holding up the official launch, but if Google has managed to iron out these problems, then we could be seeing YouTube Music Key appear in the very near future.

Own The ConversationAsk The Big Question: Is a paying subscription model really a better approach than the ad-supported model for the web in the years ahead?

Drop This Fact: Despite attracting over 10 million paid subscribers worldwide since 2006, Spotify has yet to make a profit — streaming subscription services haven't proved that they can be a success yet.